Latest Visitors

So as I play through the game, both in PvP and PvE - I've noticed something about one of my favorite classes... not many play them well (lol).

So far, it seems like a lot of people enjoy the glass cannon style of play, which is fine. The problem is, I hear a lot of mixed things about it. Some love the damage of dagger skill 2, Heartseeker - but have no clue what to do once they miss, are out of Initiative, or if they never close in enough to land it. Then I hear things like "Thieves are OP!!!1!" or the other spectrum "I can't even take a single hit from a Warrior!!! They're so OP!"

No.. Neither are (imo). The thing is - when speccing for extremes, you'll get extremes. You'll pump damage and draw decent kill numbers, but you'll also BE killed a lot, and are lucky to do nothing more than break even or be fodder for a faster point game on either side (in sPvP that is).

The build and play style I'll be talking about here is totally different. It's all about being the shadow, and being near-impossible to touch. It's very simple on paper, and while executing it in game takes some practice, this build is something that could be the staple for all modes of play with the Thief.

The skill set works around mostly the shortbow. Skill 2 (Cluster Bomb) is just.. insanity. It's 3 Initiative, fast, and when used correctly - is one of the best AoE skills I've used in the game so far for just raw damage.

Your auto attack is also just nuts. It bounces VERY FAR, target to target, getting you lots of damage while you kite... and yes.. you will be kiting a lot with this build.

While Choking Gas will be your least used skill here, Disabling Shot and Infiltrator's Arrow will be your mobility with the shortbow. Using Disabling, you can bounce away from anything that manages to get a little too close (which won't be much). With Infiltrator's, you can zap anywhere within 600ft instantly. This (I assume) was designed to close the gap faster to get in with daggers.. nope.. not for us. This will be a great skill to get you to hard to reach places and out of danger.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have the skill Shadow Strike. Essentially think of this the same way as Disabling Shot, effectively giving you two outs when in melee range besides stealth or evasion.

Also, you'll have access to what I think is the best Thief skill in the game - Cloak and Dagger. Near perma-stealth if you spec for it and play it right.

Speaking of stealth, you'll have both Blinding Powder, and your healing skill for that - as well as an extra 2 seconds of it via traits for your Steal skill (an emergency stealth and.. more on that later).

Use Tripwire as a fall-back for big fights before you go in. Escape to it to have a free get away tool later mid-fight. And skill utility 2? Well... either go Signet of Shadows for a perma buff, OR Roll for Initiative for a beautiful synergy of Initiative gain and escape from stun.

Traited, your dodging ability becomes one of the best tools in the game though. You'll drop Caltrops with every roll AND cure yourself of any cripple status! You're untouchable at this point to anything trying to catch you.

I'll try to stop being so descriptive about how good the traits and skills are, as they're pretty obvious - but maybe this will help give some folks insight as to how to be near unstoppable.

TL;DR
With these skills/traits and an evasive play style, WvWvW, PvE, and sPvP (use Basilisk Venom in sPvP btw)... you're a monster. An untouchable... scary... and well-dressed monster.

Randomness is like that. A random number generator doesn't give nice uniform rates, things come in clumps. Sure, the distribution might follow a nice Bell curve, but SOMEONE has to be at each extreme.

In BWE1, I got something like 12 dyes in one weekend. In one single 6-mob fight, I got 4 dyes. Most of my guildmates had only one or two drop for them in the same time.

In BWE2, I got 8 or 9 dyes in one weekend. Again, much higher than my friends, although not as bad a disparity as before.

In BWE3, I only got two dyes, while my friends averaged 5-6.

In this last weekend, I had a grand total of one dye drop from Friday to early Sunday, between levels 1 and 25ish. But then from 26 to 40 (late Sunday and last night), I had a dozen drop, including three in a single fight last night at 37.

It's random. If you're not getting any dye drops, you're just that 3-sigma outlier (~0.5% of the population) that is so far below the mean that it looks broken; thing is, there's probably someone else who's swimming in dyes right now at the other extreme, so find that guy and buy the dyes off him. (If the Trading Post worked, this wouldn't be an issue.)

There was a difference between costumes, social and actual armor. Was the point I was trying to make. Now it seems it won't just be costumes in the store or social items but armor aswell....

Something they have not done before as far as I know. im guessing they will be purely cosmetic or social but look like armor? I doubt they have stats.

They could be town costumes or special armour skins you can transmute onto your regular armour - which could also explain the lower price since you'd need to find an armour set in the game AND dish out for T-Stones.
Either way, they'd both still fall under "cosmetic" upgrades.